Digital Commons Network^™

Infographic: Student Views On School And Their Future, Dominique Russell

Teacher infographics

Each year Mission Australia’s Youth Survey asks teenagers about their views and experiences – providing a snapshot of the challenges they face and hopes for the future. For the first time, respondents included younger students (14-year-olds) and new questions on their feelings about school. This infographic shares some of the findings.

Managing Nurse Leader Stress To Promote Leader Retention, Rebecca S. Hawkins

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Nurse leaders are a health care group that has been provided limited support to manage stress and burnout symptoms, yet the impact of leader stress burden on staff satisfaction, patient outcomes, and their own health is vital to the provision of safe, high-quality health care. The problem of leader fatigue and burnout is the ability to retain current leaders and recruit the next generation. An education project targeted to frontline managers in critical access hospitals was provided in an effort to address leadership burnout due to stress and the lack of knowledge of how to manage stress in the moment. …

Impact Of Brøset Violence Checklist On Safety Events In A Mental Health Unit, Maritess B. Bernardo, Catherine Mann

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Practice Problem: There is an increased global risk of violence among health workers (WHO, 2023) that may result to physical, emotional, and psychological harm to patients and staff; resulting in emergency room visits, hospitalizations, increased medical costs, and victim mortality (Grossman & Choucair, 2019). Workplace violence (WPV) involving patients, families, and healthcare workers is an escalating public concern (Bellman et al., 2022). Mental health facilities are at a higher risk for the occurrence of safety events (Hawkins & Ghaziri, 2022). The mental health unit had a monthly average of 17.33 incidents in 2022 and 14 occurrences pre-implementation in the adult …

Volcanic Plume Height During The 2021 Tajogaite Eruption (La Palma) From Two Complementary Monitoring Methods-Implications For Satellite-Based Products, África Barreto, Francisco Quirós, Omaira E. García, Jorge Pereda-De-Pablo, Daniel González-Fernández, Andrés Bedoya-Velásquez, Simon Carn, Et. Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Volcanic emissions from the Tajogaite volcano, located on the Cumbre Vieja edifice on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain), caused significant public health and aviation disruptions throughout the eruption (19 September–13 December 2021, officially declared over on 25 December). Nonetheless, it is considered the most significant volcanic event in Europe over the past 75 years due to the substantial amount of SO2 released into the atmosphere. The Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN), the authority responsible for volcano surveillance in Spain, implemented extensive operational monitoring to track volcanic activity and to provide a robust estimation of the volcanic plume height …

From Waste To Sustainability: Exploring Consumer Purchase Intentions Of Milk Enriched With Upcycled Peanut Skins, Peng Lu, Fan Xu, Jennifer Waldeck, Keith Weber, Hualu Zhou

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Highlights

• National survey investigated consumer acceptance of milk enriched with upcycled peanut skins.
• Developed a conceptual model based on Technology Acceptance Model.
• Identified that consumer attitudes and emotions are essential in the purchase intentions of upcycled foods.
• Identified social influence as a determinator of consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions.
• Inform and advance research, practice, and policy that promotes upcycled food products.

Project Score Program Manual, M. Barnard, T. Johnson, A. Ford-Wade, M. Godfrey, C. Compretta, E. Dehon, S. Nasruddin, B. Wade, W. Sparkmon, M. Presley, A. Jones-White, W. Qualen

Faculty and Student Publications

Project SCORE (student-centered outcomes research experience) is an NIH-funded year-long informal public health education program and mentored research experience utilizing a youth participatory action research (YPAR) approach and near-peer mentors (NPMs) to increase science engagement, interest in college participation, and contribute to a diverse and community-engaged health sciences pipeline.

Genetic Modifiers Of Apoe-Ε4-Associated Cognitive Decline, Alex G. Contreras, Skylar Walters, Jaclyn M. Eissman, Derek B. Archer, Alexandra N. Regelson, Alaina Durant, Michelle Clifton, Subhabrata Mukherjee, Michael L. Lee, Seo Eun Choi, Phoebe Scollard, Emily H. Trittschuh, Jesse Mez, William S. Bush, Brian W. Kunkle, Carlos Cruchaga, Adam C. Naj, Katherine A. Gifford, Murat Bilgel, Amanda B. Kuzma, Balebail Ashok Raj, Kristin Fargher, Amanda Smith, Lisa Raudin, Gloria Chaing

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. However, APOE-ε4 is not deterministic, highlighting the need to identify additional genetic and environmental factors. APOE-ε4 has been linked to accelerated cognitive decline, so we sought to investigate genetic factors that modify APOE-ε4–associated cognitive decline. We conduct cross-ancestry APOE-ε4-stratified and interaction GWAS using harmonized cognitive data from 32,778 participants, including 29,354 non-Hispanic White and 3,424 non-Hispanic Black individuals. Our primary outcome is late-life cognition, measured using harmonized composite scores for memory, executive function, and language, modeled as continuous traits reflecting both normative cognitive aging and disease-related decline. …

Human Microglia In Brain Assembloids Display Region-Specific Diversity And Respond To Hyperexcitable Neurons Carrying, Jiaxiang Wu, Xiaoling Chen, Jingliang Zhang, Kyle Wettschurack, Morgan Robinson, Weihao Li, Yuanrui Zhao, Ye-Eun Yoo, Brody A Deming, Yue Shu, Akila D Abeyaratna, Zhefu Que, Dongshu Du, Matthew Tegtmeyer, Chongli Yuan, William C Skarnes, Zhong-Yin Zhang, Jean-Christophe Rochet, Long-Jun Wu, Yang Yang

Faculty Research 2026

Microglia critically shape neuronal circuit development and function, yet their region-specific properties and roles in distinct circuits of the human brain remain poorly understood. In this study, we generated region-specific brain organoids (cortical, striatal, and midbrain), each integrated with human microglia, to fill this critical gap. Single-cell RNA sequencing uncovered six distinct microglial subtypes exhibiting unique regional signatures, including a subtype highly enriched for the GABA_B receptor gene within striatal organoids. To investigate the contributions of microglia to neural circuitry, we created microglia-incorporated midbrain-striatal assembloids, modeling a core circuit node for many neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism. Using chemogenetics to …

Human Microglia In Brain Assembloids Display Region-Specific Diversity And Respond To Hyperexcitable Neurons Carrying, Jiaxiang Wu, Xiaoling Chen, Jingliang Zhang, Kyle Wettschurack, Morgan Robinson, Weihao Li, Yuanrui Zhao, Ye-Eun Yoo, Brody A Deming, Yue Shu, Akila D Abeyaratna, Zhefu Que, Dongshu Du, Matthew Tegtmeyer, Chongli Yuan, William C Skarnes, Zhong-Yin Zhang, Jean-Christophe Rochet, Long-Jun Wu, Yang Yang

Faculty Research 2026

Microglia critically shape neuronal circuit development and function, yet their region-specific properties and roles in distinct circuits of the human brain remain poorly understood. In this study, we generated region-specific brain organoids (cortical, striatal, and midbrain), each integrated with human microglia, to fill this critical gap. Single-cell RNA sequencing uncovered six distinct microglial subtypes exhibiting unique regional signatures, including a subtype highly enriched for the GABA_B receptor gene within striatal organoids. To investigate the contributions of microglia to neural circuitry, we created microglia-incorporated midbrain-striatal assembloids, modeling a core circuit node for many neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism. Using chemogenetics to …

Unleash The “Potential” Of The Collective Action Mechanism In Flsa Suits, Anthony Decaprio

Catholic University Law Review

Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to provide relief to low-income workers at risk of being taken advantage of by their larger, more sophisticated employer. The FLSA provides a collective action mechanism that allows similarly situated workers to bring suits together against a common employer outside the strictures of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. To ensure all potentially similarly situated workers have sufficient notice of the suit in order to affirmatively opt-in, the Supreme Court authorized the district courts to facilitate notice to all “potential plaintiffs.”

The circuits are currently split regarding the standard …

Between Seminole Rock And A Hard(Er) Place: A New(Er) Approach To Agency Deference, Kevin O. Leske

Catholic University Law Review

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the United States Supreme Court in 2024 overruled Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., ending the Chevron doctrine’s reign as the applicable rule for courts to use in reviewing agency interpretations of their authorizing statute. Although Chevron’s demise was no great surprise, the Court’s decision leaves myriad questions that may take decades to answer. The most pressing question is: what is now the precise standard that courts must apply to determine statutory meaning in these cases? But there is a related question that is equally important to our ever-changing …

February 20, 2026 Ereporter, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

eReporter (campus newsletter)

No abstract provided.

For What? Resolving The Causation Split For Fmla Retaliation Claims, Lucy Wess

Catholic University Law Review

For over thirty years, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) has provided working Americans the opportunity to maintain their professional careers while juggling personal and familial health care needs. Like many other employment law statutes, the FMLA prohibits retaliation by employers against employees who exercise their rights under the statute. However, a circuit split as to the correct causation standard for FMLA retaliation claims leaves plaintiffs and defendant employers uncertain of case outcomes as well as the legality of the employer’s conduct. The Fourth and Eleventh Circuits held that the but-for causation standard is the proper standard in such …

Building Health Career Pathways Early: A Community- Engaged Mini Medical School Model For Urban 4th Graders, Riley Kilzer, Liliana Bronner, Shirley F. Delair

Posters and Presentations: Family Medicine

No abstract provided.

The Role Of 15-Minute Cities In Promoting Sustainable Urban Development: A Stakeholder-Centered Project Management Approach, Pamela O. Nkwantabisah

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

The 15-minute city is an innovative urban planning approach that aims to enhance sustainability, accessibility, and quality of life by placing essential services within a 15-minute walk or cycle radius. Despite its popularity globally, the majority of projects fail to realize their objective due to ineffective stakeholder engagement, competing priorities, and inadequate communication throughout the project procedure. This study addresses the urgent problem of limited stakeholder involvement in 15-minute city planning and implementation. The purpose of the study is to determine challenges of stakeholder engagement and develop a stakeholder-centric approach rooted in project management best practices. Guided by the Stakeholder …

Why We Must Commune: Rethinking The Role Of Marketing Communications In Turbulent Times, Javier Garcia

Publications and Research

“Communications” is often thought of as a noun, representing the messages we receive on a daily basis from people, brands, and institutions alike. 

"Communications" is also often associated with an industry that exists to produce such messaging in service of capitalism, with a commercial or otherwise actionable outcome desired from its receiving audience. 

This presentation, hosted by two-time CCNY graduate and senior marketing communications professional and Assistant Professor Javier Garcia, will examine the urgency and opportunity in rethinking the value and study of marketing and communications. 

In his presentation, Professor Garcia will offer suggestions on how to guide students towards …

Integrating Zotero With Your Writing: From Research To Publication For Urology Residency Program, Evelyn Wang

HSLIC Faculty and Staff Instructional Resources

This Urology Residency workshop introduces practical skills for integrating Zotero into research and writing workflows, from managing references to generating citations and bibliographies. Topics include installing and configuring Zotero and the Zotero Connector, collecting and organizing references with collections, tags, and PDFs, inserting citations and bibliographies in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, managing PDFs and annotations, and using advanced features such as sync, collaboration, custom citation styles, and ZoteroBib.

Lived Experiences Of Nurse Leaders In Creating A Healthy Work Environment, Catherine J. Mohammed

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Background/Significance: Although the influence of leadership style on empowerment and job satisfaction is well documented, there are few researchers who examined the influence of the leader’s experience on developing the staff nurse’s empowerment and work satisfaction in the creation and sustainment of healthy work environments. The Magnet designation requires that the Magnet CNOs must have transformational and relationship-based leadership traits, yet we know little about the lived experiences of these leaders and how they came to acquire these traits (Pearson, 2020; Pilat & Merriam, 2019; Shaughnessy et al., 2018;).

The empirical evidence supports of the creation of the healthy work …

Improving Lunch Break To Enhance Nurse Happiness And Job Satisfaction, Evelyn O. Dumkwu

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Nurses frequently forgo scheduled lunch breaks due to high workload demands, inadequate staffing, and organizational cultures. Consistently skipping breaks has been associated with reduced happiness and lower job satisfaction, which may ultimately compromise the quality of patient care. This quality improvement (QI) project examined whether the structured observance of scheduled lunch breaks enhances nurses’ subjective happiness and job satisfaction. Guided by Lewin’s Change Theory and the Donabedian Theoretical Framework and implemented using the Plan–Do–Study–Act (PDSA) framework, the project employed a quasi-experimental pre–post design during a six-week implementation period. Ten full-time nurses participated in the project. Investigator-designed Subjective Happiness and Job …

Law Students Start Spring Semester With A Competitive Edge, Marisa C. Atkinson

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – While many students enjoyed the last two weeks before the spring semester began, first-year students at the University of Mississippi School of Law gained skills and practice in contract drafting and negotiations that set them apart from peers at other schools.

Exploring The Impact Of Team Culture In High-Pressure Jobs, Such As Investment Banking And Consulting, And How Project Management Can Be Applied, Mayavathi Lal

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

Toxic team cultures remain a pressing issue in high-pressure environments such as investment banking and consulting, where long hours, and hierarchical norms often undermine employee well-being and compromise project delivery. Previous studies have documented how workplace stress, exclusionary leadership, and cultural rigidity fuel burnout and turnover. However, limited research has explicitly examined these cultural dynamics through the lens of project management frameworks such as resource management, stakeholder engagement, and agile practices. This study employs a qualitative research approach by leveraging semi-structured interviews with analysts and associates, to capture the lived experiences of culture and its impact on team coordination and …

The Ballot Question: Citizen Initiatives, Institutions, And The Policy Process, Ty Rhoads

Dissertations

State-level policymaking remains undertheorized relative to its federal counterpart, particularly in states where institutionalized direct democracy creates a parallel channel for policy change outside the legislature. This dissertation develops a novel theoretical framework for the state policy process by adapting punctuated equilibrium theory to American state politics, integrating it with party cartel theory and the concept of legislative policy monopolies. The central argument is that citizen initiatives and legislative referrals are structurally distinct policy venues whose ideological profiles, policy magnitudes, and electoral dynamics are systematically shaped by the partisan context of the legislature. Using Missouri as a case study spanning …

Social Support And Mental Toughness As Predictors Of Perceived Stress Among College Kinesiology Students, Jianmin Guan, Wan Xiang Yao, Xiaofen D. Hamilton, Gaofeng Lu

International Journal of Physical Activity and Health

Drawing on Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional theory of stress and coping, this study examined the associations of age, gender, three types of social support (family, friends, and significant others), and mental toughness with two dimensions of perceived stress (helplessness and coping inefficacy) among 666 college students majoring in Kinesiology. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that male college students, as well as those with higher levels of mental toughness and family support, reported significantly lower levels of helplessness and coping inefficacy in managing stress. Additionally, greater support from friends was significantly associated with lower levels of coping inefficacy, while younger students …

Genetic Modifiers Of Apoe-Ε4-Associated Cognitive Decline, Alex G Contreras, Carlos Cruchaga, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The APOE-ε4 allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease. However, APOE-ε4 is not deterministic, highlighting the need to identify additional genetic and environmental factors. APOE-ε4 has been linked to accelerated cognitive decline, so we sought to investigate genetic factors that modify APOE-ε4-associated cognitive decline. We conduct cross-ancestry APOE-ε4-stratified and interaction GWAS using harmonized cognitive data from 32,778 participants, including 29,354 non-Hispanic White and 3,424 non-Hispanic Black individuals. Our primary outcome is late-life cognition, measured using harmonized composite scores for memory, executive function, and language, modeled as continuous traits reflecting both normative cognitive aging and disease-related decline. …

Volume Cxlv, Number 14, February 20, 2026, Lawrence University

The Lawrentian

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Research Study Exploring Icu Nurses' Resilience During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Teenu Xavier, Rebecca C. Lee

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

ICU nurses faced numerous demands and adversities during the COVID-19 pandemic that significantly impacted their well-being. Developing strategies to promote resilience was crucial for ICU nurses to overcome these workplace adversities. The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies used by ICU nurses to promote their resilience and cope with the additional stressors brought on by the pandemic. Two theories provided the overarching theoretical framework which guided this study. These are Polk's middle-range theory of resilience A Focused Ethnographical approach provided the overarching framework for this research project. ICU nurses working in adult ICUs who had cared for …

What Matters Most? Novel Findings From An Innovative Measure Of Coworker Interrelations On Nursing Units, Lynn Varagona, Nancy Ballard

Creating Healthy Work Environments (CHWE)

Background: Coworker support improves trust¹ and decreases or prevents nurses’ stress,² anxiety, or burnout.^3,4 Lack of teamwork and cohesion among coworkers can lead to nurses’ stress, burnout, disengagement, and turnover.⁵ The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index, a widely used measure, does not capture coworker interrelations. Team virtuousness, a work environment in which virtues and character strengths (routes to displaying virtues) are practiced, supported, and encouraged⁵ improves coworker interrelations. People on virtuous teams feel safe, grateful, positive, and supported by one another;^6,7 view work as more meaningful; are more engaged; and are …

Quality Improvement Project: Effectiveness Of Staff Education On Fall Prevention, Theresa Oahre Okoyomo

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Falls increase injury and mortality rates and decrease patients' quality of life. Hospital falls also incur enormous financial burdens on hospitals. In 2008, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) stopped reimbursing hospitals for fall-related injuries. The problem addressed in this quality improvement project was staff confidence in fall prevention and hospital fall rates. The purpose is to improve staff confidence and reduce fall rates by 95 % within six weeks. The 2025 CDC/STEADI Algorithm for Fall Risk Screening, Assessment, and Intervention was the program of choice because it aligns with the hospital's fall-prevention policy. This project design is …

Evaluating The Feasibility And Acceptability Of A Facilitator-Guided Wellness Initiative In A Residency Program, Alexander A. Missner, Jacob Gilbreth, Stacey Kaltman, Mayada Akil

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: Burnout in residency is a significant concern. There is an urgent need for feasible and transferable interventions that enhance resident well-being. Toward this end, we implemented a wellness intervention in a psychiatry residency program in 2019. Goals of the intervention included: 1) creating a safe space for sharing experiences in a supportive environment, 2) fostering group cohesion, and 3) addressing developmental challenges in training. We evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention.

Methods: This study utilized a mixed methods design. Following the 2022-2023 academic year, residents completed a survey examining their perceptions of how well the …

Gender Differences In College Students’ Physical Activity Self-Efficacy, Social Comparison Beliefs, And External Frames Of Reference, Ken Murfay, Sarah Pyszczynski, Sarah Collins

International Journal of Physical Activity and Health

This study examined whom college-aged individuals believe observing would more likely increase their physical activity self-efficacy (PASE) for a physical skill, whom they are more likely to compare their abilities to within a physical education (PE) class, how often they compare themselves to others in PE, and what students’ PASE scores were. Based on the mean scores for each question, students were more likely to compare themselves to a student than a teacher, friend than a non-friend, and similar or higher skilled peer than a lower skilled peer. To increase students’ confidence for a physical skill, students had higher levels …